![]() ![]() Gracious, it turned out.This collection is comprised of four instruments of the standard saxophone quartet: the Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Baritone Saxophones. On the boat, he worried what her reaction to him would be. They went their separate ways after the crash. He had flown with her husband a couple dozen times, but he didn’t know her. “It was his day to die,” she remembered thinking, “and there was nothing that anybody controlling anything could have done to change that.” But in the boat, on the water, a kind of peace settled in. Part of it was imagining his final moments, and part of it was reliving the anguish of never finding his body. “It brought back every single possible emotion and gut-wrenching, sick-to-the-stomach feeling of the day that I lost him, even though it’s been 53 years,” she said. Janet Dunne had struggled after first hearing about the wreckage find. “It felt a little surreal, to finally have this chance to put him to rest.” ![]() She was 6 when her uncle disappeared and grew up inspired by his service and sacrifice. “There was always a hole in the family, a missing piece,” said Lynn Page, one of the nieces, who flew in from Memphis, Tenn., for the gathering. Janet and Peter Dunne were there, along with Herrmann’s sisters, Ann Joy and Claire, and two of his nieces. “I think it was just meant to be.” Peace settles inĪll sorts of “what ifs” floated in the air the next day as the boat made its way toward the crash site. They were in the area because the fishing had been bad near the Coronado Islands. ![]() Kanakaris told them how lucky he felt to have been there that day. Sanborn had his son Blake with him - he’s a pilot, too, and would never have been born if his father hadn’t been rescued. On his way to San Diego, he stopped first in North County to have dinner with the spearfishing captain, Wayne Kanakaris. Sanborn is 79, a retired real estate executive. They like solving mysteries that haunt people wondering about what happened to loved ones lost at sea.Īfter their sleuthing on the Sea King, Eldridge wrote a post on his blog, Stalter reached out to various veterans groups and before too long dots got connected: Janet Dunne in Mission Viejo, the pilot Don Sanborn in Las Vegas, the Herrmann sisters back East, the captain of the spearfishing boat in Carlsbad. The diversīrett Eldridge and Tyler Stalter are history buffs who enjoy exploring known wrecks and finding unknown ones. ![]() He told her about the divers and their discovery of the helicopter. One day earlier this year, she heard from a squadron member who was one of her father’s best friends. Denise eventually made her way to a Facebook page for veterans of his Navy helicopter squadron. She’s always encouraged her daughter to learn as much as she could about the father she never met and his family, the Herrmanns. “At the time of the accident, I would never have predicted all the happiness I’ve had,” she said. Janet Dunne looks back on all that with wonder. Denise grew up to be a nurse, too, and a university professor. She stayed in nursing, he worked mostly in sales. They’re coming up on their 50th anniversary. The Dunnes moved to Southern California and made a life here. He fell in love with her, fell in in love with her daughter. “Until I started putting one foot in front of the other, saw that I could do it, I thought it was all over for me.”īefore too long there was another man in her life. “I was so fortunate to have all that support,” she said. Her family brought her home to New York, where she moved in with her parents and got back the nursing job that she’d left to come to San Diego with her husband. She was 22 and pregnant with a girl due in about six months. But it didn’t happen, and at some point I had to accept that that’s the way it was going to be. “I did think for a long time that he would wash up somewhere, and that they would find him. “Not having a body to bring home was so hard for all of us,” she said. Officials told the family he probably died on impact - small comfort amid so much grief. Navy searchers found only one sign of Herrmann, his helmet. One-hundred and eight days later, he was gone. The waiting had lasted seven years when they finally made it to the altar on May 25, 1968. ![]()
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